


Fools to the left of me, jokers to the right

by sabrina_il (marina)



Category: The Tarot Sequence - K.D. Edwards
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Boys In Love, Gentleness, Injury Recovery, Love, M/M, Massage, Painful Massage, Past Rape/Non-con, Polyamory, Rape Recovery, Sex Toys, Talking about your feelings, Threesome, is love a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:27:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23826052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/sabrina_il
Summary: Rune has Sun Estate now, and Addam, and Brand, and... sometimes both of them together. Also, he's buying a dildo.
Relationships: Brandon Saint John/Addam Saint Nicholas, Rune Saint John/Brandon Saint John, Rune Saint John/Brandon Saint John/Addam Saint Nicholas
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	Fools to the left of me, jokers to the right

**Author's Note:**

> Set after "The Hanged Man".
> 
> Alternative title: Rune's 7 Step Journey to Enjoying Anal Sex

It happens, like way too many fateful events in Rune's life, in the shower.

He's tired and bleeding and covered in guts and blood, most of it belonging to monsters and not his friends. Brand is barely on his feet too, only Addam is relatively unscathed after their latest adventure. 

Rune barely remembers the journey back to Sun Estate. Home, where his bed awaits.

Brand supports Rune as they climb up the stairs to Rune's bedroom, or maybe Rune supports Brand, it's difficult to tell anymore. Addam joins them when they step into the large shower, still mostly clothed.

Addam exchanges a look with Brand, something that looks like exasperation, and the two of them start undressing Rune. 

He should object, but he’s too exhausted, and it’s not like they haven’t done this before. Rune’s jacket is already discarded on the floor of his bedroom, so Addam removes his shirt while Brand bends down to undo Rune's pants and pull them down, leaving him in his boxers. His shoes and socks come off. Brand rises and starts undressing himself, working much more quickly.

"Hero," Addam says, turning Rune to face him. He's shirtless, though he still has his pants on. He kisses Rune, and blood seeps into their mouths, maybe from the small nick on Addam's lip, and maybe from the dry blood on Rune's cheeks. It makes everything taste like copper and heat, and Rune closes his eyes and feels lost in Addam, the safest, steadiest, most comforting harbor he's known, outside of Brand.

When Addam pulls away the shower's already running. They installed the fancy kind during the renovation. The water comes down from the ceiling, like rain, and the transparent chamber is already filling up with steam.

"Come on," Brand says, standing naked and soaping himself, washing all the grime off his neck.

Addam kisses him again, and Rune undoes Addam's belt, unbuttons his ruined slacks, pulls them down with Addam's briefs. Addam, in return, pulls down Rune's boxers, first from Rune's ass, and then from his front, slowly, until they're low enough that Rune shimmies and they fall to the floor.

If they weren't all so tired, Brand might have made fun of them for it.

Rune steps into the shower, holding Addam's hand, and moans as the steam envelops his skin. Within a few breaths he can feel his muscles relaxing, his skin losing its coating of sweat and dirt.

Which is when, of course, Brand has to remind him what pain is.

Done washing himself, Brand puts a gentle, deliberate finger against the back of Rune's shoulder, and Rune tries to stifle a gasp of pain. He can't see Brand's face - Rune is still facing Addam - but he can feel the frown even without their bond.

"Don't say it," Rune mumbles, leaning against Addam's chest, feeling Addam's strong arms wrap around his waist.

"What?" Brand says, putting his hands on Brand's shoulder, a warning before the strike. "Just because I fucking said you can't take two weeks off from upper body exercises and you fucking ignored me and we got attacked and now your shoulder is the worst it's fucking been in two years? Why would I say anything about that?"

Brand digs into the muscle, and Rune knows, with the certainty he has about the color of the sky, that Brand is touching him as gently as it's possible to touch while still applying minimal pressure. But it hurts, it fucking hurts, and Rune moans his pain into Addam's chest and neck and feels one of Addam's hands come up to caress his wet hair, Addam's lips kissing the top of his head as Rune tries not to sob.

When Rune's breathing gets easier, the muscles untangling, the pain receding a little, Brand changes the touch, presses harder, pushes at new spots, making Rune grab at Addam again, biting his lip to stay quiet.

He knows they haven't been here long - Brand wouldn't let them linger more than twenty minutes in a room filled with steam - but the minutes feel endless. The waves of pain and release from Brand's fingers feel like they reverberate through Rune's entire body.

Finally, when he can feel Brand pushing but the pain is bearable, Rune lets himself whimper, knowing Addam will lift up his face and kiss him, with warm, wet lips. This time the blood on Rune's tongue is definitely from Addam's cut.

"You're very brave, Hero," Addam says, looking down into Rune’s eyes as Brand pulls away. All Rune did was stand here and let someone else make him better, but as usual with Addam, the words are full of earnest seriousness that makes Rune's chest ache, to match his sore shoulder.

"Come here," Brand says, pulling Rune gently away from Addam, as if asking for a dance in a high school movie. "Don't turn into a fucking noodle," he adds, grabbing Rune's favorite fragrant soap and lathering it up between his fingers.

Right. Rune is still filthy and smelly. Addam washes up too, while Brand puts some of the lather on Rune's hands and uses the rest of it to soap up Rune's stomach and legs, dropping down to his knees to wash Rune's calves and thighs.

Rune can see him hiding a wince, when his right knee touches the hard floor.

"Don't," Rune says. "I can wash myself."

"Can you, though?" Brand says, and Rune remembers that he's not going to hear the end of it about foregoing his exercises for the next two months.

"Let me," Addam says, from behind Rune, kissing Rune's uninjured shoulder, and slides his soapy hands over Rune's back.

Brand rises, and this time he's the one in front of Rune while Addam is behind him. Rune has no shame about leaning his head against the crook of Brand's neck and sighing happily while Addam washes him, chasing every clean bit of skin with a kiss.

Addam goes slow, especially as he gets down to Rune's hips. Rune can feel him go down to his knees, like Brand, and he's about to protest, but Brand's hand comes up to Rune's neck, the other below his shoulder blades, holding him put, and he relents.

If all the men in his life want to ruin their knees in the quest to wash the dirt off his skin, Rune will object some other time when he's not quite this tired.

Addam rubs the backs of his legs, each of Rune's feet, lifting each one off the ground, and then his hands come up to Rune's ass. He caresses the cheeks before gently parting them and running his soapy hand inside, from the top of Rune's crack, over his hole, and down, until he meets Rune's balls.

Rune jolts, moans into Brand's skin. His fingers, needing something to grab, bury themselves in Brand's hair.

"Shh, Hero," Adam says, and water pours over the lower half of Rune's body, washing his lower back, his ass, his legs. Adam rubs between his cheeks, makes sure the soap is gone from Rune's balls.

They haven't done a lot of this. Addam basically lives at Sun Estate now, with how much time he spends with Rune, helping him run a house and a court that keeps growing every day. 

Something about being back in this house, restoring it, has been forcing Rune to confront his memories - the good and the bad. It’s taken away some of the distance he’s always liked to leave himself, some of the breathing room. But on the flip side, Addam is here, and Brand, and every time Rune has taken a step he wasn't sure he was ready for, they’ve caught him. And with every step making the next one got a little easier.

A lot’s changed, since Half House. Rune is fine with being naked around Addam now, not just in the shower, but in bed too. He’s let Addam touch him everywhere, no restrictions, no flinching. But Addam’s been careful. He’s run his hands over Rune's ass, but only when Rune is on top of him. He’s given Rune plenty of blowjobs, acting like Rune’s dick was the universe’s gift to him personally, but he’s never pinned Rune down while doing it. He’s asked Rune a few times if he’d like to fuck Addam, but he’s never brought up Rune bottoming.

And now, here Addam is, touching Rune's hole, washing the soap away and then pressing his lips to that tender skin.

Rune howls, digging his short nails into Brand's skin, making a noise so loud the whole house can probably hear him. Thank the gods none of their kids are visiting. 

"Is this okay, Hero?" Addam asks, pulling away after just one lick. He’s testing, trying to see if this new thing will work for Rune or spook him.

It’s the perfect time for this, really, with Brand here. Brand who has maintained the polite fiction of giving Rune and Addam space, not butting into their sex life unless he’s explicitly invited to hear details. Should they be doing this now, all three of them together?

Rune is too tired to sort through it. Addam is probably just as overwhelmed, if he’s chosen to do this now. Rune takes a deep breath, and feels Brand's arms around him tighten. 

Brand isn't objecting to this, isn't pushing Addam away. Which means nothing in their bond is indicating fear or pain or panic. Brand, who’s studied Rune's body for as long as they've been alive, doesn't register anything but pleasure in Rune's reaction.

"Addam..." Rune says, unsure of what to say. Does he want this? Fuck yes. So, so much. He wants to just accept it and not worry, not think twice about it in the grand scheme of him and his boyfriend bringing each other pleasure.

"From your tone, Hero," Addam says, running large fingers slowly over the backs of Rune's thighs. "I think you might want me to stop?"

Brand lets go of Rune's head, and Rune pulls back until they’re staring at each other. There’s nothing but rock solid steadiness in Brand's eyes. No judgement, no ambivalence. He'd support Rune in whatever he wanted, but he’s also letting Rune know this is okay. Brand is seeing all of this, and instead of complaining ro rolling his eyes, he’s pouring support and confidence into their bond, like salt poured into a pot of boiling water. 

Not everything has to be calculated and processed. Some things you can just enjoy because they feel good. He can’t read Brand’s mind, but that’s the feeling Rune gets from him.

It would feel fucking amazing to have Addam's mouth against his ass. He’s never let anyone do that to him, not any of his boyfriends when he was a kid. And he’s standing here, warm and wet in his own familiar shower, Brand holding him, Addam's gentle fingers on his legs. There are no ghosts wearing animal masks inside this room.

"You may proceed," Brand says, after a few more moments of holding Rune's gaze, because sometimes the bond really is uncomfortably close to relepathy, and Addam dives back in, pushing his face into Rune's ass, making Rune grab Brand again, lean against him, moan as if the walls of the bathroom are soundproof.

Rune is hard, against all odds and rhyme and reason. He was so tired, and he still can't get the smell of the exploded guts out of his nose, but every hot, wet lick of Addam's mouth against his hole is breathing life into his erection.

Addam presses his face against Rune's ass for long minutes, licking inside, lips against the rim, tongue pushed as far in as it can go, and Rune feels like his cock is too hard, impossibly hard, about to burst.

He feels a hand - it has to be Addam's hand because Brand's are still wrapped around Rune and Rune's are buried in Brand's hair - reach between his legs, wrapping around his balls and pulling gently down just as Addam pulls away and then comes back to lick at him again, like Rune is his favorite lollipop. Rune makes a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a scream. It’s only the last shreds of his sanity that ensure he doesn’t sink his teeth into Brand’s shoulder.

The hand between his legs moves, wrapping itself around Rune's cock, and now the grip feels so comfortingly familiar, and Addam's mouth against him is still so hot and wet, just like the rest of Rune's skin, and he wants to sob with the relief of it, the pleasure pouring into him from an act he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to find pleasure in. Instead, he comes, shuddering and exhaling, feeling like he’s about to collapse.

Brand and Addam move around him, one of them supporting him the entire time until they’re out of the shower and there’s a robe wrapped around Rune, and then they’re in the massive bed in Rune's room, which is absolutely big enough for three, and Rune doesn't think about anything else until the wakes up many hours later.

*

Seemingly, nothing changes after that. They continue to live their lives, Addam continues to spend most of his time at Sun Estate for one reason or another, Brand continues to act like he has no feelings about Anna incorporating elements of Companion training into her studies as a scion, Rune continues to learn what it's like to run a court of his own.

They get attacked by ghosts, dinosaurs, actual flying monkeys, one of the other Arcana, and on one memorable occasion, Brand's magically animated double.

Everything is going pretty much as usual, except for one time when Rune and Brand and Addam are standing next to Rune's bedroom (which might as well be his-and-Addam's bedroom now), talking over Quinn's latest incomprehensible, mystifying bit of prophecy. Rune's hands start to roam, he slides his fingers under Addam's shirt and leans into him and the three of them keep talking. 

Addam leans down and kisses Rune's head, briefly, and then answers Brand's question about something Quinn said. And then, while Rune's talking, Addam slides a hand over Brand's back, and leans down and... kisses Brand.

On the lips. He kisses Brand.

It's not an especially deep kiss, it doesn't last very long, but Brand, after a minuscule hesitation, goes with it, instead of pulling away. He kisses Addam back, while Rune's still talking to him, and all Rune can say, after the words dry up in his mouth, is "...Rude."

Brand looks over at Rune, as Addam pulls away, and for a second, just a split-second, Rune can feel a river of uncertainty and fear starting to flood their bond, but then Addam says "Brand, join us?"

That minute distraction makes Brand’s feelings clearer somehow, and Rune realizes Brand's negative feelings are only about Rune's reaction, not what Addam just did. Not about the invitation.

The only part of this that’s weird for Brand is whether Rune will actually want him in there with them. 

Which… is really no question at all. 

Rune pushes open the door to the bedroom and takes a step inside. "Come on,” he says, to both of them, and expects them to follow him. He doesn’t know how to make this not-awkward except to just jump into it and hope none of them drown. 

Inside his bedroom, with the door closed, Brand and Addam make out some more and take off each other's shirts. But mostly, they’re both focused on Rune. His pleasure, his vision for what they should do, how they should conduct themselves. Rune gets it. It's new, whatever's between them, and if he can facilitate it, he will.

*

"I always forget, Brandon," Addam says, maybe three months later, stroking Brand's dick while Brand is hunched over him, the two of them exchanging savage kisses while Rune watches, spent and blissed out on the bed next to them. "How huge that thing is. Is it really entirely natural?"

"No," Brand says, between kisses. "I left a tooth under my pillow for the tooth fairy one day and then this fucking thing grew out of my body."

Rune chokes, and Addam turns away from the next kiss to chuckle. "That is maybe the most inappropriate thing I've ever heard you say," Addam says, when he's done. "Which is saying a lot."

"Do you want it or not?" Brand grins down at Addam.

Addam licks his lips. "Yes, please."

If Addam was a different sort of scion, he might have had a lubrication spell in one of his sigils, maybe even his artificial hand. But he's much closer to being a normal person, so they use the lube Rune now habitually keeps in his bedside drawers, instead.

Brand slicks himself up while Addam does the same to his own fingers and pushes a few of them inside himself. Rune leans over and kisses Addam as he does it, absorbing the sounds of pleasure into his mouth.

"Do you want to help Brand?" Addam asks, licking at Rune's bottom lip. It's still a little swollen from the blowjob Rune gave him earlier.

Rune turns back to look, and Brand is positioning himself. Pushing Addam's legs wider apart, lifting Addam's ass a little off the bed, pushing his bent knees under Addam’s thighs.

They're both so good at this. They understand how this act can work best, be the most pleasurable. Rune didn't realize until he saw them together how practiced they both were. And both of them had hidden it from him all this time.

No, not hidden. There was no deliberate lie on either of their parts. But if they hadn't been in this room, all three of them, it would never have occurred to Rune.

Rune moves to be closer to Brand, to watch him slide two fingers into Addam, when Addam was clearly expecting the main show to start after he’d already taken care of the warmup. 

"Get on with it," Addam says, giving Brand an aggressive little growl.

"What's the fucking hurry?" Brand says, sliding his fingers out and pushing his dick closer.

Rune can’t take his eyes off the spot where Brand's cock is touching Addam's ass.

Brand gives Rune a sly smile. Through their bond Rune can feel nothing but reassurance. This is okay. Whatever Rune wants to do is okay.

Rune's hand wraps around Brand’s, both of them holding Brand’s massive cock. Rune can hear Addam sigh, and see Brand bite his lips, as if trying to hold something back.

Rune pushes Brand closer to Addam's hole, that tiny, dark opening in a sea of pale skin and hair. Rune pushes further, until the very tip of Brand is inside Addam, and then doesn’t move anymore. 

Addam makes a frustrated little sound.

Rune is just frozen, staring at where Brand and Addam are joined. It’s like time around him has been suspended. Brand is so big, and Addam wants this so much, and bodies shouldn’t work like this, shouldn’t find pleasure in something like this, but somehow they do.

"Please, Rune," he hears Addam say, which is so annoyingly like Addam, so open and needy and unashamed. If Rune wasn't here, he'd be ordering Brand to fuck him already. It's only for Rune's benefit that they're taking it this slow.

Rune pushes Brand's dick slowly into Addam, and as it slides in Brand grunts and Addam tenses and relaxes, giving a short little groan, throwing his hand over his eyes until Brand's fully inside him.

Rune's pushed Brand in to the hilt. His balls are resting against Addam's skin. Have they ever gone this deep right off the bat? Rune can't remember.

"Fuck, that is a beautiful instrument," Addam says, splayed on the bed, looking relaxed and unconcerned.

Brand chuckles, but Rune can see how warm his face is, how the flush runs down his chest. 

How long had Brand been fucking strangers whose company he had to pay for, all because having a relationship would conflict with being there for Rune every waking moment of every day? Why couldn't this have been one of Brand's lovers, someone wonderful and caring, shared between them on this massive bed?

Rune shakes his head. Those are useless thoughts, and this close, with their bond this open, Brand will sense them in a moment, and this whole scene would devolve into reassuring Rune.

Instead, Rune kisses Brand's mouth, pulls him closer, while Brand is still slowly, lazily thrusting into Addam.

"You're so good at that," Rune says, and feels Brand's flush get even deeper.

"Stop complimenting him, Hero," Addam says, a little out of breath. "I'm sure he's heard it all before." Addam's eyes meet Brand's, and both of them give out a little laugh, disrupting the rhythm of the thrusting.

Brand pulls back, his cock never fully leaving Addam, and pushes Addam's left side up, off the bed. Addam goes with it, pulling his leg up, rearranging himself to he's almost on his side. It creates a tighter angle between his legs, and Brand pushes back in, faster this time, and fucks him with quicker, shallower thrusts.

Addam gives a breathy laugh. "Yes, fine, you are extremely talented, Brandon," he manages, and then everything else is just steady little moans.

"Don't you fucking forget it," Brand says, a gleam in his eye. His hair is practically standing up with sweat, his fingers are gripping Addam for dear life, and his hips look like they were born to do this.

This is the closest they've gotten to fucking each other with one of them on their stomachs, Rune thinks. It's not quite right, but it's closer to how Rune was positioned, for all those hours. While they raped him not just with their bodies but also any and every object they could find. While they experimented on what would fit inside of him. What would cause the most damage. Some of it he doesn't even remember, he only read about it in the report. He remembers the treatments he had to get, afterwards, magical and otherwise, to heal sufficiently to take a shit by himself again.

He doesn't want to think about this. Brand and Addam look so happy, so excited, nothing about the scene in front of him has any hint of anything but pleasure. They’re enjoying this, the way most people do, especially people with prostates. Neither one of them has ever done this out of anger, or fear, or violence.

They've never been made that vulnerable.

Rune slides his fingers into Brand's hair and pulls, a little harder than usual, and Brand bucks, groans, loses his rhythm for a second, making Addam groan in return. Rune moves his fingers down Brand's sweaty back, caressing down the curve of his ass, sliding two fingers between his cheeks, just brushing gently, and Brand mewls, gritting his teeth.

"It'll be his fucking fault if I don't last," Brand says, talking to Addam, squeezing his eyes shut. "I want that on the record."

Rune laughs and pulls away. He leans against Addam, finding his lips despite the awkward angle, and Addam uses his big hands to pull Rune even closer, somehow holding his balance and thrusting back against Brand the whole time.

Rune feels it against his lips when Addam spasms and comes, yelling, using a few choice Russian swear words Rune's learned by now. They kiss in between Addam's sighs and Brand's last few thrusts.

They kiss, and Rune tries not to tell his thoughts intrude too much into the bed where the men he loves are making each other very happy.

*

It's a few months later, when they're having breakfast with Corinne, Corbie, Anna and Max, who are on vacation from Magnus Academy. Layne is working, and Quinn is visiting his aunt. They have a huge table now, and a dining room where everyone can fit, and although it's Queenie's day off she left them enough food for a week.

After breakfast Corbie asks to play video games, and Max relents on playing Minecraft together in his room. Anna drags Corinne outside, to the pool, ostensibly to show off her new water spells, but really to catch up on everything at Magnus.

It's then, when the dining room is nearly empty, and only Rune, Brand and Addam are finishing their drinks (juice, coffee and tea) and snacks (nothing, cake, sushki) at the table, that Brand turns to Addam and says: "Did you know he bought a vibrator?"

Rune is sitting between them, and he can feel his ears go red almost instantly. He doesn't even know if any of the kids are still lurking behind a door nearby.

"A vibrator?" Addam asks, furrowing his brow. "Not a dildo?"

"No, that was six weeks ago," Brand says. "Since then we graduated to fucking butt plugs, and now it's vibrators."

"Am I supposed to understand this as... progress?" Addam asks, still confused.

"I don't know," Brand shrugs. "I feel like it would be, if he talked about it, to at least one of us. But he hasn't, so I really don't know what to fucking make of it."

Rune looks towards the ceiling and wishes he could just turn himself into air and float away through the window.

"Is this really the conversation we're having in the dining room?" he asks.

"Oh, that's what you're going with?" Brand says, finally looking at Rune. "Bold fucking choice."

"What do you want me to say!" Rune finally gives in. "You obviously know what's going on already, do you want running commentary? Polaroids? Should I stream it on Instagram?"

Addam and Brand exchange a look.

"Rune," Addam says, in his reasonable tone. "Where would you prefer to have this conversation?"

*

They end up having it in Rune's bed, doing the thing Brand refuses to call cuddling, and Rune can't think of as anything else. Brand is sitting up against the headboard, and Rune is lying with his head on Brand's thigh, and Addam is sitting with his arms stretched out behind him and his legs tangled with Rune's.

Rune knows Addam deliberately made sure they were touching Rune, boxing him in without smothering him, giving him physical comfort without crowding him, for this part. He gets it, and Brand probably gets it, and they're not going to talk about it.

"How does it feel?" Addam asks, idly rubbing one foot against Rune's calf.

Rune closes his eyes and doesn't think about the last time he was lying on this bed, on his back, awkwardly trying to insert a plastic dick into himself. He doesn’t think about how he ordered the smallest size butt plug he could find, browsing the website in incognito mode, and how weird it had still felt inside of him. 

Having something solid pressing against his insides like that, something obviously fake that didn’t even feel like a penis, it did something weird to his brain, like it was exposing faulty wiring. Instead of jerking himself off like a normal person he'd gone into the shower, that thing still inside of him, trying not to groan with every step. And then he'd jerked himself off with the sound of the water, the wetness all over his skin, and that had been okay somehow. It had felt so amazing and so strange.

He felt like a pretty giant freak about it. Probably why he'd pretended to himself Brand would let any of his purchases slide.

Lying on the bed like this, on his back, his head on Brand and his legs touching Addam's, it's impossible to hide the fact that he's getting hard just thinking about it.

"Good," Rune says, forcing himself to open his eyes. "It felt mostly good."

"Mostly?" Brand says, not moving from his this-only-looks-perfectly-comfortable slouch.

"It was also... a little weird," Rune says, rubbing his palms together, focusing on the physical task instead of looking anyone in the eye. "Which I think is reasonable? It felt weird and I needed some time to just... try things. Experiment."

Rune feels Brand stiffen. Their bond is a narrow thread, as artificially peaceful as a manicured lawn.

"Do you want more time?" Addam asks, stilling as well.

"I don't think so," Rune says, grateful for the opportunity to explain before Brand has a seizure at the thought that he forced Rune into something before he was ready. "Part of the reason it felt weird was that I kept wondering what it would feel like with a real person. That's why..." Rune closed his eyes for a moment and then forced himself to open them. 

He was a goddamn grownup who had a throne and an estate and dependents and if he was going to have this conversation with his Companion and his boyfriend he was going to do it right. "That's why the dildos weren't enough. I thought maybe I'd try something that didn't force me to... to do it to myself. Where I could just feel like something was inside me, without me controlling it every second. And then that still wasn't enough somehow, so I thought I'd get something that moved on its own."

"Where are they?" Brand says, his voice softer now, a hand brushing Rune's hair away from his forehead.

Rune closed his eyes and sighed. "Let's not pretend you don't already know that."

"Addam," Rune hears Brand say. "Closet, top drawer, below the shelf that's half sweaters and half socks."

The bed dips and Rune opens his eyes again, tilting his head upwards to meet Brand's gaze.

They stare at each other in silence while Addam moves around the room, and Rune feels nothing but steady support and confidence and love coming through their bond.

"You don't want this?" Brand says, so quietly the air between them barely moves. "Just say the word."

"Found it," Addam says, still with his back to them.

Rune shifts again, moving closer to Brand, pressing himself more fully against Brand's stomach. Brand slides down a bit, wraps his arms loosely around Rune's shoulders.

Rune wants him here for this. He’s so grateful to have him here for this. 

So many Companions ended up their scion's lover, it was almost expected. But Brand had pushed Rune away, all those years ago, after that drunk kiss, and it was one of the few boundaries Brand had drawn between them. Usually it was up to Rune to prevent Brand from living inside Rune’s head, his clothes, his body, his hobbies, his habits, and every single one of his decisions. Brand had only pushed Rune away one time, in their entire lives, and Rune was going to respect that forever.

But now, apparently, there was this.

Maybe, Rune thinks, as Addam brings a cloth bag that had originally contained one not-very-large dildo and now could barely fit all the toys Rune had bought for himself, maybe Brand was afraid of losing himself completely in Rune, and that was why he’d kept that boundary between them. Maybe it had been Brand's way of ensuring he never lost whatever shred of objectivity he needed to protect Rune, from everyone including Rune himself. Maybe he was afraid that if he didn't keep that bit of distance then one day he'd fail to pull Rune away from the next disaster in time.

Maybe it was easier, now that Addam was here, because Rune and Brand weren't alone in this anymore. There was always someone else to look out for both of them.

Maybe.

Rune tries not to think about what it would mean for how Brand views Addam. How permanent of a fixture in Rune's life Brand considers him to be. He doesn’t want to think about that because getting overwhelmed with his sappy emotions is not the objective right now. 

Addam plops down on the bed, as if he's an average sized cat instead of a very large man, and spills out the contents of Rune's bag on the covers, and Rune can feel his cheeks heat in spite of himself.

"Did you wash any of these?" Brand asks, as if he doesn't already know the answer. His arms around Rune stay loose and relaxed.

"This one is very nice," Addam says, picking a sturdy, medium-size, rainbow colored butt plug from the pile. "I have one too. The core inside is a little heavier than average. It’s a little harder to insert but feels great once it’s in."

Rune feels his entire face go red.

Why? Why can't he just talk about this, like a normal person, with his lovers?

He knows why. They all know why. He's worked hard to even get to this point.

"Of course you have one of these," Rune says. "I guess everyone just has their own fuck toys collection? Do you, Brand?"

"You know me," Brand says. "I prefer to pay professionals to bring their own equipment."

"Do you like this one?" Addam asks, holding up a dildo that's large and smooth and looks the least like a penis.

"Obviously, he's got it in his fucking goody bag," Brand says.

Addam shrugs. "I own a lot of things that I barely use."

Brand doesn't make a grumpy comment about rich scions, but Rune can feel one brewing in his stomach.

"Yes, I liked it," Rune says. "I got it when... at first, it felt like a smart move to get something that didn't look like a real dick." For reasons Rune isn't going to go into. Not out loud, not right now. 

Addam nods, and picks up another butt plug and examines it.

"Look, what's the point of this?" Rune asks. "Are we playing twenty questions about every sex toy I've ever bought?"

He can see Addam and Brand exchange a brief look over his head.

"I was just curious, Hero," Addam says, putting the butt plug back on the bed. "If you're okay with me seeing these, touching them, I want to hear all about what they were like to use."

"I wouldn't mind some graphic detail," Brand agreed.

"Which one of these have you used the most?" Addam says, with a friendly, open smile. "Which one made you come the fastest? Have you settled on a size you prefer?"

Rune doesn't really want to get off this bed and leave the room, but if he didn't have Brand's arms around him he might have been tempted. Does he want to talk about this? Is he ready to share those details? He must be, since he hasn't shut down the conversation so far. In fact here he is, lying relaxed in between his lovers, watching them go through his anal toys.

He's going to ask one of them to fuck him, eventually. It feels like the knowledge of that, the weight of it, lands on him out of nowhere, even though it's probably the most obvious piece of information in the known universe.

And now Brand and Addam have switched from never bringing that up to maneuvering him into a conversation about his penetration preferences.

Because when he does ask for it, they'll be ready. This is their bloody research, Rune realizes. Brand must have waited and waited, and decided they had to get ahead of things before Rune just showed up one day and demanded to be fucked without being forthcoming with the details.

Would Rune have fucked himself up by going too fast? By doing all his practicing and processing by himself and assuming it would be just the same with his two partners?

Maybe.

He can feel Brand's warm breath on the top of his head. He’s sending Rune a wall of comfort and steadiness and calm. A soft wall, that can wrap itself around Rune. More like a blanket.

Rune takes a deep breath. "My favorite one is probably that one," he points to a butt plug made of three small spheres. "I love the way it feels, nothing hits my prostate like that thing does. But the one that makes me come the fastest is this one." 

He picks up a medium-sized dildo from the pile, it's pale pink and fairly similar to the real thing, and stares at it. "Because it looks a lot like your dick, Addam, and I like imagining it's you fucking me, when I use it." He looks up at Brand, and then over at Addam. "I've also not had any flashbacks, since I started this little experiment, so you two don't have to worry about that."

He can hear the audible sound of Brand swallowing above him.

"That's good to hear," Addam says, his tone full of relief.

Brand pulls Rune's head up, tilting it and kissing Rune awkwardly on the corner of his mouth.

Addam's hand, meanwhile, moves from handling the dildos to circling Rune's dick through his jeans. Although they're home, Rune is wearing real, outside clothes, with the kids and Corinne visiting.

He's definitely regretting that now.

Addam's hand goes from circling to straight up massaging Rune's dick, making Rune moan and buck his hips, and prompting Brand to release him from the awkward grip.

"I'd like a few more stories," Addam says, grinning and popping the button on Rune's jeans with his other hand.

"Please don't do this," Rune says, in a tone he knows betrays his resignation that they're definitely going to do this. "Someone's going to need me downstairs in like, half an hour, tops."

"Twenty minutes," Brand says, running his fingers through Rune's hair in a way that makes the jeans an actively painful confinement. "You can talk while Addam's got his lips around your dick, right?"

Rune sighs, closing his eyes, and stifles a moan.

*

Rune knows, after that, it’s just a matter of time.

Which is probably why Brand takes to saying "It is not just a fucking matter of time, you better get that through your thick fucking skull" to him every few days, at random times.

Addam for his part, does ridiculous things like putting Rune's (now always clean, since Brand doesn’t have to pretend not to know about them anymore) sex toys into his mouth. Rune doesn’t know why it’s so hot, watching Addam swallow around a dildo Rune remembers having inside of himself, but he can't argue with how intense the orgasms are, when he watches it happen.

Then resource redistribution begins, in the form of Addam using one of Rune's favorite plugs on Brand, pushing it inside slowly and carefully while Brand sighs and pants against a pillow, and then leaving it in there for the rest of the night, until all three of them are covered in come and it’s time for a shower.

Eventually, it leads to Rune demonstrating how he prefers to use the vibrator that had seemed so over-the-top to Brand, with Addam jumping in to give tips, play with the angle, and make Rune writhe. Rune comes on his knees, head resting on his arms, bent at the elbows, with Addam holding the vibrator and Brand's hand wrapped around Rune's dick. He screams when it happens, loud enough that he's grateful none of the kids are home. He feels like he can barely get enough air into his lungs from how hard his balls are contracting, how all-consuming the pleasure feels. Like waves of it are passing over his body, concentrating somewhere in his hips, pouring out of his dick and onto the sheets.

It isn't until a few days later, when he's in the shower, alone, after a morning run Brand forces him into after Rune loses an argument, that Rune realizes he was kneeling with his ass in the air, with other people touching him, fucking him, and he hadn't thought twice about any of it. He hadn't flinched, he hadn't had a sudden, panicky feeling, like he used to get in the early days of trying to offer Addam more intimacy than a shirtless makeout session.

He'd come his brains out, and none of it had been even a little alarming, during or after.

He pushes his forehead against the glass walls of the shower and lets the hot water wash the soap from his back.

*

When it finally happens, Rune doesn't really notice.

Brand is on his back, legs wrapped around Addam, who's fucking into him with a steady pace, and Rune is kissing Brand, running his hands over Brand's muscled chest, swallowing the moans and little sighs Brand makes.

A thing Rune hadn't known until Addam showed up in his life, is that Brand's prostate is extremely sensitive. It suddenly makes sense why Brand prefers to pay for sex and have everything his way, rather than negotiating a partner’s expectations. Rune can't imagine too many people who wouldn't be obsessed with Brand's giant dick, just like Addam was in the beginning. Down at the docks, Brand didn't have to make excuses, didn't have to satisfy the other party's interest in his body. He could just ask for what he wanted and not feel like he had to perform.

Like he’s not performing right now, when Addam speeds up his thrusts, after fucking Brand for only a few minutes, and Brand groans and buried his fingers in Rune's hair, and comes all over his stomach, without anyone even touching his cock. When Addam or Rune tried to jerk him off in this position, he used to come in less than a minute.

"Fuck," Brand says, throwing his arms wide across the bed. "Good show, Saint Nicholas."

In bed was almost the only time when Brand and Addam felt comfortable openly complimenting each other. Rune tries not to let them see how hilarious he finds it.

Addam grins at him and bends down to lick the head of Brand's cock, sucking the semen from the slit, and Brand laughs and squirms and pushes Addam's head away, swearing.

Addam relents, and leans over to kiss Rune. The shift makes him slip out of Brand's body, and Brand takes the opportunity to sit up and take a few deep breaths, coming down from his orgasm high.

"Do me next," Rune says, smiling up at Addam in between kisses.

Rune’s hole is already slick with lube, because they’d played with one his plugs earlier. Addam nods and keeps kissing him.

Eventually Brand's arms claim him, dragging Rune down to lie on his back, propped up against Brand's chest and stomach.

Addam looks over Rune's lower body like he wants to spread Rune’s, grab his ass and eat him out - Rune knows that look well. But that’s not what they’re doing tonight. 

Rune bends his legs and spreads them wide, to bring the point home and make Addam stop looking like a ravenous carnivore.

"All right, all right," Addam laughs, and kisses Rune again, before pushing a pillow under Rune's hips.

Brand helps after that, grabbing Rune's thighs and pulling them up, pushing Rune’s legs back, bending him nearly in half.

Rune pushes two fingers into himself and closes his eyes. He wants Addam's dick in him so bad. He's so hard, so close to coming, but he just needs to feel Addam inside of him and against him, to feel Addam's heavy, comforting weight, to wrap his legs around him like Brand was just doing.

When he opens his eyes he can see Addam is down with the plan. His eyes are lust and hunger, and he leans over Rune and positions his dick at Rune's entrance without any more interruptions.

Brand pulls Rune's legs back a little further, giving Addam more room and making Rune moan with how this feels. Stretched and held in between the two most important men in his life.

Addam pushes inside of him and Rune gasps, grabs Addam, diggs his fingers into his back to make him stay right where he is. He never wants to lose this feeling, never wants to feel anything but smothered and consumed by the love the two halves of his heart are willing to give him. All their patience and care and gentleness, all their protectiveness, he wants it in the form of being fucked silly, naked in this bed, every part of his body touching one of them.

He breathes, and Addam breathes, and above them Brand also breathes, but slower, steadier.

"Okay," Rune says into Addam's ear, after some indistinguishable length of time. "You can move now."

Addam pulls away a little bit, just enough to kiss Rune, tangle their lips together, lick inside his mouth like Addam is trying to make sure Rune is still in one piece with his tongue.

Rune relaxes his hands, still on Addam's back. He pulls away from the next kiss and smiles. "Move," he repeats.

"Hero," Addam mumbles, looking away from Rune, as if he'd just seen something terrifying but was now relieved to know it was just a figment of his imagination. He pulls his hips back, pulling out of Rune's body, and then slowly pushes in.

Rune groans, and moves one hand from Addam's back to his own dick. It feels like everything in him is begging to come, his body is melting from the intensity of being held like this, fucked like this, and he has to let the heat coiling through him out somehow.

He jerks himself, as Brand shifts his grip, grabbing Rune's knees, pulling his legs even further back, letting Addam's thrusts become truly spectacular, and it doesn't take long before Rune is moaning, yelling out his pleasure, spilling all over his fingers.

The come spills out of him while Addam is kissing his mouth, and Brand is kissing his neck and the side of his head, and he can't think of a time when he's felt safer and more contained in the cocoon the two of them habitually try to build around him, in and out of this bedroom.

Afterwards, Brand lowers Rune's legs, slowly, and Addam pulls out, even though he's still hard. Before Rune or Brand can say anything, Addam wraps a hand around himself and comes about thirty seconds later, spilling on an already wet spot on the sheets.

They're all filthy, and Brand won't let them lie in the bodily fluids for long, but right now Rune is content with just breathing in the thick air and wrapping one arm around Brand, and another around Addam, until both of them lie next to him, one on each side, sweaty and covered in saliva and come.

All of this feels so familiar and so new at the same time. The entire room smells like sex, and Rune never wants to leave this bed, for the rest of his life. 


End file.
